The Bridge of Louis Philippe

Jean-Baptiste-Armand Guillaumin

National Gallery of Art

This painting shows a riverside with a cream-colored bridge cutting horizontally across the scene in front of a bustling city. The bridge is decorated with flags that have stripes of red, white, and blue. Closest to us, at the bottom of the painting, large white barges are moored on the reflective blue river, with small people in white shirts floating nearby on wooden platforms. On the left, a pale gray path stretches along the side of the river, with some pedestrians walking on it. In the distance on the right, tall buildings are visible in shades of yellow, blue, peach, and cream. They have pointed roofs with many dark chimneys sticking up into the air. The sky above is blue and full of soft white clouds. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible, and details are suggested with dashes of paint, rather than illustrated clearly.